1. Technical Field
Embodiments discussed herein generally relate to processing of data packets.
2. Background Art
To provide communication between different devices within a system, some type of interconnect mechanism is used. A wide variety of such interconnects are possible depending on a system implementation. Oftentimes to enable two devices to communicate with each other, they share a common communication protocol.
One typical type of communication protocol for communications between devices in a computer system is a Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCI Express™ or PCIe™) protocol. PCIe is a serialized I/O interconnect standard developed to meet the increasing bandwidth needs of the next generation of computer systems. The PCI Special Interest Group (PCI-SIG) manages a number of PCI specifications—including the PCI Express Base Specification, Revision 1.0a, Apr. 15, 2003, PCI Express Base Specification, Revision 2.0, Jan. 15, 2007, and PCI Express Base Specification, Revision 3.0, Nov. 18, 2010—as open industry standards, and provides the specifications to its members.
PCIe is one example of a load/store input/output (IO) interconnect system. The communication between the devices is typically performed serially according to this protocol at very high speeds. Various parameters regarding this protocol were developed with the intent to achieve maximum performance without regard to power efficiency, as the PCIe™ communication protocol was developed in the context of desktop computers. As a result, many of its features do not scale down to lower power solutions that could be incorporated into mobile systems.
Various other communication protocols are designed for devices to exchange information using lower power levels than those required for communications according to PCIe. As successive generations of computing and networking technologies become increasingly sensitive to incremental improvements in power efficiency, there is an increasing demand to integrate low-power solutions for communication within and/or between devices.